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As I mentioned in the other post, I've been out of touch since last Saturday.  Gasp.  Could only do the minimum through my phone, or work at public libraries.  My bills aren't even paid, as I do that online.  I do philosophy lectures in Second Life, and I'm behind there.  My email is a scandal.  New clients not contacted. What did we do before the internet?  What a minute, that's a silly question.  Sorry. There was no time before the internet.

Hi Violinda.  I look forward to reviewing your book.  Welcome to the site.

I"ve posted an edited version of "Oh, Zusanna."  It is just a reediting, so you won't get points from reading it, but it has some significant alterations.  More scenes of Rhiannon's vision, more past sins being revealed.  The surreal elements of her recovery from it are more pronounced, and the reader is left to wonder:  where did she get that scroll, anyway?  I re-edited all my chapters as reviews come in.  If you want to know your impact, or the latest version, just look at the date of the last reediting.  Thanks you all for your observations, which motivated the changes. I can't always pay you in points, but you will always get a critique in return.  Hugs

Awesome, Tom!

ptui

Thanks, Don.  I do have a character (or characters) like that.  Rosalyn, who won't show up in the book you're reading for a while, comments on the weirdness, from her point of view, of what's going on, and has to have things explained to her.  In the "prequel," the Terran colonel who she is having an affair with, does research, although he still has his stubbornly "scientific" explanations for things.  Oh, yes, starting in the middle presents it's own difficulties, but then, you're always starting in the middle.  But her radio conversation with Jeb and her dialogue with Lido helps, and more comes along as the story progresses: a delicate balance, as you don't want to slow down the action too much, but you have to clue the reader in  One thing I've done is to describe "around" something.  What do I mean?  Well, suppose you were writing to an alien audience about race relations in the US.  You wouldn't come out and talk about discrimination in the criminal justice system, but you'd show a cop beating up a black man, just describing the two, not mentioning the race.

Another thing is to embed the explanation in the action.  I don't explain that she shares her ancestor's ability to communicate and command the birds, I just have her do it.  For those who are familiar with the Mabinogeon, the response will be 'oh, yeah.'  But those who don't know the fairy tales will catch on from what's happening.  The forest the fog the wolfen all evoke cultural memories deep in our collective unconscious.  Other things have to be explained:  why didn't Lido stick around to help her?  So she flashes back to an incident that brought about the Treaty between Dragons and Men.  It's a delicate balance.  When she's on the pirate ship, I don't mention it's a pirate ship, just show that.  Don't mention what they're oiling, the reader has to figure out that this is a society which wouldn't have motor-boats.

Also, again thanks for your review, some of your issues simply became Rhiannon's and Lido's issues.

One nice thing about fresh eyes is that it makes you reconsider what you did in the first parts of a book.  Two people thought it was funny but unbelievable that Rhiannon wouldn't know that a fire-breathing dragon could light a fire better than her.  I kept it, but had her make the same observation, crediting her denseness to her anger at male ego (every woman can relate to that.  A guy actually being better than you at something.)  A couple have voiced problems with the deus ex wyrm of Lido just showing up.  Now you can add Lido and Rhiannon to that chorus.  (There is a reason, but the reader learns it when Rhiannon does).  Another coincidence was dealt with in a similar manner.  I'll call this the Count of Monte Cristo gambit. I read the extravagant way in which he arrives at a hotel in preparation for his revenge to my spouse, and she said, "What, no dancing girls?"  On the very next page, one of the characters goes, when told of the extravagance, 'What, no dancing girls?"  It's a great technique to put a reviewers problem in the mouth of a character.

John, I figured 'Ummmm' was because you felt you didn't know what you were doing.  your great strength is in your poetry-prose, so it's ok if the motion of the story is conventional, it is just the skeleton.  Think of yourself as a body painter.  You have a model who looks pretty pathetic without her clothes on, then, through your magic, you make her spectacular.  And never 'go back to masturbating.'  There's no losers in writing, only quitters. 

I just read your comments on the latest chapter of New Fairy Tales (I like that) and I found them insightful/incisive/instructive/inadmissible in a court of law.  Now King Ferrell's court?  That's another question.

All good ideas, max.  Watson was the one that Holmes had to explain things to.  And if you read it close, it was Watson who engineered that, as he was supposed to be writing the stories.  He often made himself look like a bumpkin, but forgot that was his role, and we see him making observations worthy of Holmes himself.  And Holmes, in writing one of the story, uses subterfuges to confuse the reader--apologizing to Watson that he didn't understand how to write a story, and that Watson's "unnecessary" drama and obfuscation was in fact, necessary to good story writing.

Oh, an what I finally did on the vrocalacas.  I had a character, who is from the human world, say that she didn't find such creatures at all normal, and blurted out the human term for them.